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Roasted Vegetable and Spinach Lasagne

Thursday, 24 March 2016

I'm calling this one a classic with a twist. Lasagne has always been one of my favourites and used to always be my meal of choice at an Italian. It was actually one of the first proper meals I learned to cook too. My dad taught me before I went away to university so I'd at least know how to cook one decent meal. Of course, we cooked it the traditional way using mince and white sauce, but I remember it well and how proud I was when it came out the oven and actually tasted good. A few years on when I started to eat less meat I created a veggie lasagne with ricotta cheese, which I loved a lot, but now that I'm vegan I wanted to see if I could make a version that was just as delicious as its meat and vegetarian counterparts. I used a creamy cauliflower sauce as the white sauce and I think it worked really well because this is possibly the best lasagne I have ever made, and me and lasagne go way back so that's saying something.

You will need (serves 4-6, depending on how big you like your portions):

for the red sauce

2 carrots

1 onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

3 tablespoons tomato puree

1 cup vegetable stock

2 teaspoons basil

a dash of chilli flakes

for the roasted vegetables

1 aubergine

1 courgette

10 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon herbs de provence

1 teaspoon paprika

ground pepper

for the white sauce

1 head cauliflower

1 garlic clove, minced

1 cup vegetable stock

1/2 cup almond milk

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

ground pepper, to taste

spinach

whole wheat lasagne sheets

vegan cheese to top (optional)

Method:

for the white sauce

- Start by making the white sauce. Chop the cauliflower into florets and then add all the ingredients, apart from the nutritional yeast, to a large pot and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5-6 minutes until the cauliflower is quite soft.

- Put the mixture into a blender adding the nutritional yeast and blend until smooth. Leave this to the side while you prepare the red sauce.

for the red sauce

- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

- Chop up all the vegetables - the onion and carrot into small chunks and the courgette and aubergine into bigger chunks.

- Put the onion into a large pot and add a little olive oil. Fry the onion over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes and then add the garlic and carrot and fry for a further 2 minutes until all the vegetables have softened.

- Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, basil and chilli flakes and leave this to simmer over a low heat while you roast the rest of the vegetables.

- Put the chunks of aubergine and courgette into a bowl and mix together with the olive oil, herbs, paprika and ground pepper until everything is coated. Transfer the vegetables to a roasting tin and pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove from the oven and give a good mix before adding the halved cherry tomatoes and putting back in the oven for the remaining time.

- Once the vegetables are roasted, add these to the red sauce and mix well. Leave this to simmer for a further 10-15 minutes so all the flavours can combine.

to assemble the lasagne

- Once the red sauce is ready, you can start to assemble the lasagne. Start with a layer of red sauce followed by a layer of spinach leaves then a layer of white sauce and then the lasagne sheets. Repeat this twice and then finish with a layer of white sauce and top with vegan cheese.

- Put the lasagne into the oven at 180 degrees celsius and bake for 25-30 minutes.